


Slum Luck

by TurtleNovas



Series: Aranlyde/Nasilovat Legacies [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen, OC: Deks Aranlyde, OC: Naitak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleNovas/pseuds/TurtleNovas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young gangster stumbles across an injured boy in the slums of Coruscant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Red"

As a young boy, he'd always imagined Coruscant would be a warm planet. It was, after all, a golden city, built on bright, shining light and boundless prosperity. Or so he'd always believed. When he'd gotten there, though, he'd quickly realized that all that light and warmth were reserved for the select few living on the upper levels. Down in the slums, where you had to crane your neck just to get a glimpse of that pinpoint of sky, there was nothing but cold, and not even the hot stench of sewage and garbage could chase the chill away.

This was where the common man lived, doing everything he could just to scrape by. These streets were ruled by brutality and crime, fed on the kind of corruption that could only come from the desperate need to survive. There was no light here - just the comforting embrace of the shadows, hiding from view all those unsavory things one had to do just to stay alive.

Deks shivered, flipping the collar of his jacket up with one hand, the other hung loosely at his side, ready to draw his blaster at the slightest hint of trouble. He had a job to do today, and if he did it right, he'd been promised two weeks extra pay. Two weeks of pay to go towards his “get the hell out of this forsaken stink hole” fund, and all he had to do was make a simple trade. He had a case of rare (illegal) microchips tucked away in the folds of his vest, and when he returned, he would have a credit stick with more money on it than he'd ever seen in one place for his boss. It was a simple job, if he could just make it in and out without stirring up any trouble.

So intent was his focus on the path before him, that when he came to a sudden stop, it took him several moments to piece together what it was that had made him quit walking. A sound, quiet and miserable, from somewhere behind and left of him. He turned, listening more intently, body loose, and ready to start shooting at the drop of a hat. The moment stretched on, the delicate silence broken only by the sound of sewage rushing in the gutter below. Deks had almost managed to convince himself that there had been no sound at all when it came again.

A moan? Or a cry? He couldn't tell. He took a stuttering step towards the pile of garbage it seemed to be coming from. He knew he should ignore it, knew he should turn to go, knew that it was probably a trap. Everything in his mind was screaming at him to just ignore it and carry on with his mission. _The credits_ , his mind said. _Think of the credits._ It was true: he didn't have time to stop for anything, especially not an ambush that would probably end in him losing the microchips, and perhaps more than a little blood.

He took another step, and the cry came again, a sort of stilted, gasping agony that his mind insisted couldn't possibly be a ruse. He drew his blaster, and held it at the ready, skirting around the mound of waste to seek the source of the sound. Slowly, a shape resolved in the shadows. A child. Deks lowered his blaster, but didn't holster it, wary still (he had been only a child when he'd first shot someone, what was to say he wouldn't be this kid's first?).

“Hey kid,” he said, quietly, unwilling to draw more attention than was absolutely necessary. He got no response. “Kid,” he tried again, stepping closer and dropping into a crouch just behind the slumped form. Still nothing. The kid didn't even seem to realize Deks was there. It made unease curl in Deks' gut.

He holstered his blaster, and tried to ignore the tremor in his hand as he reached out, laying a ghost of a touch on the child's shoulder. The reaction was instantaneous. The kid shrieked, turning to face Deks and scuttling backwards into the shadows all in one go. Deks reeled as well. Even with the child's (a boy Deks thought, but couldn't be sure) face obscured by shadow, he could see that there was blood, _so much blood_. His hair was red with it also, and Deks concluded he must have a head wound.

The child was staring at him, breath coming in quick, ragged bursts, arms held out in a pathetic semblance of defense. Deks felt the rise of vomit in his throat and swallowed, hard. “It's okay,” he said weakly. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

For a long moment, neither moved, the only sound between them the broken sobs of the child's panic. Deks waited, held his hands out in front of him, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. Slowly (so, so slowly), the child lowered his arms, and his breathing slowed, but didn't quite lose that shredded edge. “Promise?” the child's voice was strained, rasping over the words.

“I promise.” It wasn't lost on Deks how meaningless a promise really was in a place like this, but he resolutely pushed that thought away.

There was another beat of quiet, and then, “Are you human?”

Deks was thrown for a moment. Could the boy not see? “Yes,” he said slowly, and regretted it immediately when the response was a sob. Deks reached out, but stopped when the boy shrank further out of his reach. “Kid, come on,” he said quietly. “I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna look at you. Maybe I can help.”

There was another long pause.

“I have medpacs, and kolto gel,” he added hopefully.

He heard the boy sniffle, and then say, almost too quietly to hear, “I'm not like you.”

Deks' heart sank a little. “What do you mean?”

“Hu-human,” the boy stuttered. “I'm not human.”

Deks frowned. “I don't give a damn about that. C'mon kid, I can't just leave you like this.” He held out a hand slowly. “At least let me look and see if I've got anything that could help you.”

The seconds seemed to crawl by as he waited, watching with agonizing patience as the boy uncurled and shuffled slowly forward, the shadows falling away as he wrapped thin fingers around Deks's own. The dawning tide of horror was immense as Deks pulled the boy slowly into the light. He had no eyes (dimly, Deks recalled hearing of such a species – looking like humans, but lacking traditional sight, seeing instead through the Force), and the pale skin over the empty sockets was marked red with blood and the vicious, shining line of a burn.

Someone had taken a blaster to the kid's face.

Deks swallowed hard again, and reached to steady the boy. “Alright, kiddo,” he said, mostly to distract himself. His voice came out shaky, and he patted the kid gently on the shoulder in an effort to cover for it. “Did they get you anywhere else? Anywhere I can't see?”

The boy looked straight at him then...or at least, turned his face upward, to the point that, if he'd had eyes, they would've been meeting Deks' own. “No,” he said, in that same pained voice. “Just my face.”

“Okay.” Deks released a long, shaky breath. “Okay,” he said again. “I...can't fix this here. Do you have a place to go? Someplace I can take you?”

“No, I'm sorry.”

_Shit._ What was he supposed to do? He had to make that delivery, or he'd be losing more that just that bonus pay, but he couldn't just leave the kid. “Shit.”

He looked away, mind racing, stumbling desperately over his thoughts as he tried to formulate a plan. The boy laughed, quiet, and choked, but when Deks looked back, he was smiling. “It's okay. I don't want to cause you any trouble. Really, I will be fine.”

Deks gaped for a moment, and in his surprise, managed to find his resolve as well. “Look, I'm on a really tight schedule right now, and if I don't run this errand it's probably gonna be my life on the line, but if you can sit tight for an hour, I will come back for you. I promise. If I give you some stims for the pain, and a bit of kolto gel, do you think you can keep hidden here until then?”

Deks was already detaching the tiny capsules of meds from his belt when the boy responded, “You're a good man.” He couldn't help but laugh in response, pressing the capsules into the boy's hand.

“I wouldn't go that far, kid.”

“If you say so,” there was a flicker of a smile once again. “The Force doesn't lie, though. I can see it in you.” Then he pressed the analgesic stim into his leg and hit the trigger, grimacing as it discharged.

Deks was torn between a smile of his own and a frown of worry. At this point, though, all he could do was hope the kid made it until he could come back. He stood quickly, stripping out of his jacket and dropping it around the kid's shoulders before turning on his heel to leave.

“Don't go anywhere, now. I'm gonna need my jacket back.”

“I will be here,” he said, voice small. “Thank you.”

Deks smiled with a joy he didn't feel, and gave a wink before setting off down the street. He had a trade to make, and he had to make it fast.

 

 

 


	2. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sight

Naitak did as he was told, sinking back into the shadows to wait. He had no real reason to trust that the man would actually come back, but, even dulled as his sight was by pain, he could see the bright hot tendrils of Force the curled around the man's heart. That kind of pure couldn't be faked, he knew. So he would wait as long as he could.

A breeze swept through the narrow street, and he shivered violently, then scolded himself for the noise that came with it. He could certainly not afford to be spotted, and now that the stim was kicking in, he was able to control his whimpering with minimal effort. He pulled the man's jacket tighter around himself, debated briefly slipping his arms into the sleeves, but decided against it. The jacket was clean, smelled of nothing but leather, and he didn't want to muss it any more than necessary. Still, he was grateful to have it at all.

He was sure that somewhere, on the upper levels, the sun was high and warm in the sky, but here, in his secluded spot behind a pile of garbage, the air was cold, and damp, and he couldn't perceive any natural light source. He curled in on himself some more. He had to stay small, and quiet, and hidden. He cast out with his awareness, trying desperately to see a larger area, but could muster only enough focus to determine that he was alone in this small stretch of street.

He turned his focus inward instead, searching for the flow of the Force within himself, trying to assess the damage to his body. If he could only just focus enough, he thought he could maybe help himself start to heal. Or at least, he'd heard that was possible for people like him, people who could use the Force for more than just sight.

It was worth a shot, he thought.

He didn't know how much time passed like that, with him curled into the shadows, trying desperately to weave the Force through his wounds the same way he would use it to lift an object, or do a party trick. There had been no change in his surroundings that he could discern when the sound of someone's approach broke his concentration. He lifted his head, casting out for the source of the sound, and nearly collapsed with relief when he found it.

Bright hot and pure, curled around a buzzing, nervous core of a human. The man didn't stop when he came to Naitak, though, just kept moving, tracing a fanning path, looking for any bad guys, Naitak assumed. He went far enough away that Naitak couldn't actually see him anymore, but still there was a small thread of awareness that stretched between them, and Naitak knew if the man were going to abandon him, that thread would've snapped.

When he finally did return, the man seemed to crumple with relief, his voice breaking over the shaky, “Hey, kid,” as he dropped into a squat behind Naitak's garbage pile. Naitak didn't have time to respond before the man was talking again, “Look, we need to beat a hasty retreat out of here if we're gonna get gone without getting spotted.”

So they'd gone, the man carrying most of Naitak's weight for him as he led them through a dizzying set of side streets and alleys.

Eventually, they came to a cantina, and Naitak didn't even need to see to know that this was not a reputable establishment. The sounds and scent of the area were enough, even without the sickly curl of dark running over his consciousness. It seemed familiar to the man, though, and if anything in the situation was absolute, Naitak realized, it was his trust for the stranger.

Not very many minutes later, Naitak found himself in a small room that seemed to be where the man lived. It was simple, and clean, and lacked the sickening edge of the cantina outside. There was a shower, Naitak noticed, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to feel clean.

“So, this is home sweet home,” the man said, and sounded dreadfully worried, like perhaps he had somewhere else he desperately needed to be.

Naitak felt unease grasping at his ankles, tried to shake it away. “It's nice,” he said. “Not like out there.”

The man smiled, but his voice sounded sarcastic when he said, “I try.” He cast a quick glance around, as if he were looking for something that wasn't there. Naitak reached for his wrist, and he startled.

“Um...if you need to go, I promise I won't steal anything. You can lock me in if you like.”

The stranger laughed uncomfortably, and was talking fast when he replied, “Look, yeah, I hate to just leave you here to fend for yourself, but I really gotta go see my boss or he's gonna think I ran off with his creds. But, you can, you know, get clean, have a snack, whatever. Spare clothes are over there,” he pointed towards a small door. “Take what you like. And, um...food's in those cabinets. And if you need any more stims to tide you over 'til I can get a proper bandage on that, they're in the locker by the shower.”

“Thank you,” was all Naitak could think to say.

“Okay, yeah.” The man turned to go, but stopped with his hand on the doorknob and turned back. “Look,” he said, face grave. “A lot of people saw me bringing you in here. Don't open this door for anyone. Not even if it sounds like me.”

Naitak nodded, and the man was gone.

-

Two days later, Naitak found himself standing on the boarding dock for a shuttle to the spaceport. He had with him a pass, which was to grant him passage to Tython, where he was going to visit the Jedi Academy. Because, the man said that there were only so many people out there who could use the Force for more than just sight, and that, as one of those people, Naitak had every right to be trained as a Jedi, instead of rotting in the slums on Coruscant. Naitak didn't know if that was true, but he knew that the Jedi were brave, and kind, and would not see him left with no home and no family, even if he weren't cut out to train as one of them.

He also had with him two clean sets of clothing, and a new mask, carved of bone, with red, teardrop beads dangling from either end (to match his hair, the man had said), which he could wear to avoid scaring anyone he might meet on the way. It was a little too big for him now, but he would grow into it.  It was more than he'd ever had before.

He clutched the bag with these items in it close to his chest and turned to look at the man, who had rescued him, and had given him all of these things. It was nearly time for him to board the transport, and Naitak realized that, after this, he would probably never see the man again. He let his bag fall to his side, and moved instead to slip his necklace over his head. It was nothing, really. Just a worthless, old coin on a string that he'd had as long as he could remember, but it was all he had.

“Here,” he held it out to the man, who looked slightly startled, but smiled.

“What's this?” he asked, letting Naitak drop it into his hand.

“It's my lucky coin. I want you to have it, to give you good luck, so you can get your starship.”

The man's expression softened then, and his voice was fond when he replied, “Thanks, kid. I'll take good care of it for you.”

Naitak smiled, and was going to respond, but the sound of an announcer calling for final boarding came, and suddenly he was bustling his way onto the transport. Before he stepped over the threshold, though, a sudden thought occurred to him, and he turned back, “What's you're name?”

The man laughed. “Deks,” he said, and then added, “Deklan Aranlyde.”

The doors were shutting on the transport as Naitak called back, “I hope we meet again, Deks!”

Looking back on it years later, he knew it was strange, but, a week later, when he stumbled up the steps of the Academy Temple, and the guard asked his name, he didn't think twice before responding, “Naitak Aranlyde.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long while ago, I started filling out a prompt table with little ficlets about my SWTOR characters. This was the first thing I wrote for that.


End file.
